Social discrimination as a major global issue in the 21st century

Social Discrimination: One of the Major Global Issues of the 21st Century

Over the years, humanity has made a significant stride towards equality for all. This is best understood from a background of the slave trade era where race was the primary determinant of an individual's place and role in the society. After racial discrimination was overcome through activism, primarily in the US, the next global issue, as concerns discrimination, was gender. Women were discriminated in the society as their role was considered to be limited to the home, household chores, and wife responsibilities. However, and through education and technology, gender is no longer the primary global issues in the subject of discrimination, but rather, social discrimination. In the 21st century social standing is the major bass for discrimination against individuals.

Social discrimination would be described as a form of discrimination that is founded on an individual's standing in the society. The attributes attached to this include class, place of work, title, level of education, and wealth. While discrimination is a vice, that should be ejected from the utopia or healthy and equitable society, life in general and the societies we life in are not perfect. Moreover, discrimination is two faced, and it's considered distasteful and wrong when and for the persons who are discriminated. For those who are favoured because of discrimination, frankly speaking, it is an impetus.

The issue of social discrimination is a rather tricky affair because, from elite perceptive, it's arguably a founding to form a basis on an individual, especially when you haven't met them. It is often emphasises on the importance of initial contact and how the image formed during first contact will affect the opinion an individual has about you. But practically, first image is only an opportunity to erase the socially-founded image held by a person and write a new one based on individual attributes.

Normally, when planning to meet a new person, the typical human being will try to learn more about the individual because human beings are social beings. The process of learning about the new person is primarily a background check on their level of education, their employment status, place, and role, their marriage status, and the neighbourhood they live in. It is no wonder the typical social media requires such attributes for display on an individual's profile. Such social attributes will therefore determine the language to use, the choice of language, and conversation topic and direction, among others.

However, this image is temporary and open to challenged or be fully anchored, a process that happens in the first few minutes when you meet the new person. In cases where these social attributes are challenged, it's often to hear such a statement like "He/She is brilliant; actually, I didn't think such of him/her." This also provides a justification for the process used in recruitment and specifically, the importance of physical interviews.

It is simply unfortunate that at times, social attributes have to be used as a basis for discrimination. However, this is normally the case when a person or a group of like-minded persons do not get the opportunity to meet physically and interact with the person or group being discriminated. It is therefore incumbent of every person to make sure that their personal attributes overwrite and social attributes that may be attached to them as personal attributes have power over social attributes. To do this, at a personal level, the main element to hold to is confidence. At a societal level, overcoming social discrimination will require equality socially, economically, and politically. For a an African, of Asian to enjoy the same social regard as a Westerner, it would require social acceptance, economic empowerment, and political maturity; because as is the case with all aspects of discrimination, they thrive on weakness and limitation from the side of the aggressor, when he/she feels threatened.